Most of us enjoy sweet stuff (hopefully just occasionally). But, especially when you’re suffering from Adrenal Fatigue and want to recover from it, it is important to cut back on sugar. In order to do so it’s really helpful to be aware of the other names of sugar on food labels. Because without knowing it, you are probably consuming much more sugar than you would expect. Food manufacturers are savvy and have several tricks to hide sugar from you on their ingredient lists:

Ingredients are listed in order of the quantity present in that product (1). Manufacturers know that if sugar is number 1 on the ingredient list people probably not buy it so they use multiple types of sugar. This way each type of sugar is individually smaller and as such each type of sugar appears further down the ingredient list.

They hide sugar under all these different names realizing that most of us don’t associate many of these with just plain old sugar.

So make sure to look out for all the different names of sugar, and add them up. Look at the nutrition label for total sugar per serving and also at the ingredient list. Before I go on to list the many different names of sugar I would like to give you a little more information about sugar.

Types Of Sugar

Sugar (chemical name sucrose) is a fairly recent product. It didn’t really become available to the public until about a century and a half ago. Before commercially produced sugar became available, people used honey.

Sugars are carbohydrates, which are an energy source for the body (other carbohydrates in food are starch, also known as complex carbohydrate, and fibers). Sugar is also sometimes referred to as simple or fast-acting carbohydrate. There are various types of sugars and they occur both naturally and as added ingredients in many foods. The most familiar form of sugar is sucrose, which consists of two simple sugars, fructose and glucose. Vegetables and fruits naturally contain fructose and glucose. Some other sugars used in foods include corn syrup, invert sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey and lactose (milk sugar). During digestion, all of these sugars with the exception of lactose break down into fructose and glucose. Lactose breaks down into glucose and galactose. As they (almost) all break down into fructose and glucose their names may be different but the impact the different forms of sugar have on the body is more or less the same!!

Today, on average, Americans are eating about 20 teaspoons of added sugar per day (or 320 calories) (2). This amounts to 64 pounds (29 kg) per year!

“In 1822, we ate the amount of added sugar in one 12 ounce can of soda (360 ml) every five days, while today we eat that much sugar every seven hours”(3)

While in some cases we may add sugar to food ourselves, most of these sugars come from processed and prepared food. Sugar is mostly created as a result of processing one of two types of plants: sugar beets or sugar cane. These plants are processed, and refined to eventually resemble the white table sugar you are familiar with.This sugar has absolutely zero nutritional value: it’s just refined, pure, sugar.

A Word On Fructose

Did you know that most sugar today in the U.S. and many other countries comes from corn (Zea mays)? This is processed as a syrup and sold and used as high fructose corn syrup. Fructose is considered healthy by many as it is a natural ingredient in fruit and it does not raise blood glucose levels as readily as glucose. However, research suggests that (excessive) fructose consumption may lead to a wide range of health problems. Health problems such as insulin resistence which may lead to type 2 diabetes and obesity (4),(5), gout and elevated blood pressure (6),(7) and a new condition called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease that now affects up to one-third of Americans (8).

Dr. Robert Lustig’s,Sugar: The Bitter Truth, is a must watch 90 minute lecture that digs deep into the science and biochemistry behind fructose consumption.

Don’t be worried though to consume (organic) fruit in moderation, because fruit not only contains modest amounts of fructose (in it’s natural state), but it also contains fiber and a lot of vitamins and minerals. Since fruit contains sugar, it can still have an effect on your blood sugar, but it will have much less of a blood sugar spike as nutrient-void sugar or high-fructose corn syrup will have.

Adrenal Fatigue And Sugar

Along with making us fat, (excess) sugar consumption has been linked to a number of negative health conditions, such as contributing to an increased chance of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, renal failure, macular degeneration, high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease (9). Blood sugar levels have an impact on your energy, concentration, performance, mood, ability to lose weight and much more. Keeping balanced blood sugar levels is highly important for a healthy working HPA axis and to restore adrenal health.

Whenever you eat processed sugars (starchy foods or drink alcohol) without adequate amounts of quality fats and proteins together with essential vitamins and minerals, your blood sugar level will rise, and quickly too. As a result the body reacts by releasing insulin, a hormone that quickly lowers your blood sugar levels. But because the feedback mechanism that signals your brain that blood sugar has returned to normal is slow to respond, this can often lead to a blood sugar crash to levels that are lower than your body’s homeostatis levels. The more processed sugars ingested in this manner, the more insulin that is released.

When your blood sugar levels dropped too low you could get into a coma, so your body must respond to this immediately. The body responds to this emergency situation by releasing cortisol. Cortisol helps the liver to convert glycogen to glucose to raise blood sugar levels. Often times when individuals experience low blood sugar and cortisol is released they will reach for things that will provide them with quick energy like coffee, colas, energy drinks or by eating something high in sugar. This in combination with the released sugar from the liver just starts the above process over and over again, a process that is sometimes referred to as the “blood sugar rollercoaster”.

A diet high in alcohol or refined and sugary foods predisposes you to the blood sugar rollercoaster. This is further aggravated by irregular eating habits. Both are a major source of daily HPA axis stresses.

So How Much Is Too Much Sugar?

If you want to optimize your health and recover from Adrenal Fatigue you should do your best to avoid foods that contain added sugars, such as regular table sugar (sucrose) or high fructose corn syrup (see the list below for more names for sugar). Naturally occurring sugars that are found naturally in foods such as fruits (fructose) and milk (lactose) are fine in moderation.

The Heart Association report suggests that the added sugar treshold is no more than 100 calories per day or recommends, about 9 teaspoons or 36 grams of sugar for men and about 6 teaspoons or 24 grams of sugar for women (10). This means that one can of coca cola with 35 grams of sugar already puts you over your sugar limit for the whole day!

So to summarize:

Consumption of naturally occurring sugars is fine in moderation. Added sugar in any form is not good for you and it’s even worse when you suffer from Adrenal Fatigue, so please use it sparingly.

When You Still Want To Use A Sweetener

When you still want to use an added sweetener occasionally, instead of sugar you could use:

The sweet herb stevia.

Organic raw honey in moderation

Make sure to stay away from artificial sweeteners, as they can be even more damaging to your health than fructose. Agave syrup has been regarded as a healthy alternative by many, but you should stay away from it as well, as it’s a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose.

Below is a list to help you identify the various forms of sugar in your food (11):

56 names for sugar

Agave nectar

Glucose

Barbados sugar

Glucose solids

Barley malt

Golden sugar

Beet sugar

Golden syrup

Blackstrap molasses

Grape sugar

Brown sugar

High-fructose corn syrup

Buttered syrup

Honey

Cane juice crystals

Icing sugar

Cane sugar

Invert sugar

Caramel

Lactose

Carob syrup

Malt syrup

Castor sugar

Maltodextrin

Confectioner’s sugar

Maltose

Corn sugar

Maple syrup

Crystalline syrup

Molasses

Date sugar

Muscovado sugar

Demerara sugar

Organic raw sugar

Dextran

Panocha

Dextrose

Raw sugar

Diastatic malt

Refiner’s syrup

Diatase

Rice syrup

Ethyl maltol

Sorbitol

Evaporated cane juice

Sorghum syrup

Florida crystals

Sucrose

Fructose

Sugar

Fruit juice

Treacle

Fruit juice concentrate

Turbinado sugar

Galactose

Yellow sugar

Did you know there were so many different terms in use for sugar? Can you think of other names for sugar? (12),(13),(14), (15)

Have you been through a very stressful event or period? Do you have trouble getting out of bed or even if you just woke up, you still feel tired? If so, chances are, you are experiencing symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue.

The Adrenal Fatigue Recovery Package is written and created by Jorden Immanuel. It contains ALL the information and the tools that you need to get MORE energy and to fight off your fatigue.

Jorden Immanuel holds a Master's degree in Social Psychology from the University of Tilburg (Netherlands), is a certified NLP Practitioner and Strategic Interventionist. His passion to advise and guide people to engage in a healthy and active lifestyle made him decide to setup and launch AdrenalFatigueCoach.com.

His main goal for launching this website is to promote understanding of Adrenal Fatigue – what it is and what it is not – and further provide materials and products to support prevention and treatment of Adrenal Fatigue.

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